


Drifting

by ninamazing



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Canon, Community: malriv_ficathon, Episode Related, Episode: s01e08 Out of Gas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-11
Updated: 2006-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Shhh," River said. "The stomach is the optimum hit point for serious warfare. Legs cannot be afforded. Arms are needed for weapons. In the stomach you will bleed and hurt but you will not die. Pain is a weakness. A small inconvenience. Death is intolerable."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Drifting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **claramata** in the Mal/River Fic-A-Thon and originally posted [here]() at the LiveJournal community. Beta services provided by **jazzfic** and **ana-sedai** , for which they receive my eternal love!

In Mal's dream everyone was slipping away from him. It was three hours earlier in the small living room off the infirmary, as he briefed everyone on how it was. Simon shivered in his coat; Shepherd Book looked solemn, and, _wo de ma_ , afraid; River just looked steady -- as if she wasn't really there.

The reality morphed, and before Mal could tell them which shuttle to take, Kaylee took one last breath and just like that, the amount of oxygen in the air dropped below a critical level and they were all heaving, just to stay alive. Zoe didn't scream, so neither did Wash -- Mal was afraid, even then, that Zoe would come back from the beyond to kill him herself, for letting her man die under his watch. Mal was sorry, but all he could do was watch; he was the only one who could still survive, who still had enough air to keep his thoughts clear and his eyes wide open. The smile came right out of sweet little Kaylee's face, and Mal thought: _no matter how hard I try, it'll never be there again_. He turned his eyes to River, whom not too long ago he'd caught in the cargo bay curled up in a cranny with some contraband. Her face was contorted -- he knew at once she felt Serenity's pain -- and she was speaking, still, even as the color drained out of her face.

"Lifeless stars," River said, and Mal jumped up, awake, slamming his knee against the console. He whirled in his seat, and the brown blanket fell off. Yeah. Definitely a dream.

"River, what the --"

"Self-gravitating spheres of plasma generating nuclear emissions," she continued, and smiled.

"What are you doin' here?" Mal asked again, dazed, wiping sleep from his mouth.

River twirled in her boots. "Billy's finding the part right now," she told him. "Doesn't know what it means yet. We'll be fine." Her smile told him it was summer on Shadow with the bellflowers just comin' in; her pale, oxygen-deprived face told him somethin' a good deal different.

" _Gan niang de san ba_ \-- River, you are _not_ meant to be here right now -- your brother's gonna be rocketing back in that shuttle, and that don't bode too well for Zoe. She needs a _sane_ doctor."

River just looked at him.

" _Ta ma de,_ " Mal swore, quietly, mindful of the air it took to talk. "Look, if I live to see your brother again, and I'm really hopin' I don't, he's gonna rip me limb from limb, and then I'll probably have to shoot him, and then Zoe will too, figurin' she can, and it'll get ugly --"

"Don't worry," River told him, still shining, eyes still full of secret happy knowledge.

"Don't worry -- River, do you want to die? _Ni yao si, shi bu shi?_ I ordered you all off my boat for a reason."

Her smile faded. "I just didn't want to leave you here," she told him, and cast her eyes down. "Didn't want to leave Serenity." She reached out a hand, as if to steady herself, holding one of the firm steel bars that kept the ship together.

Mal's voice softened. "Your brother'll be pitchin' a fit," he reminded her. "He'll hate himself 'till the end of the 'verse, anything happens to you."

"I'll stay out of the fight," she promised, grinning up at him again. Mal's stomach turned cold.

"I don't plan on there bein' any fights here, darlin'. You hear somethin' different?"

"Just remember to see the part before you open the door," she told him quietly, and flitted away as the static on the console monitor crackled and a face appeared. Mal looked out the cockpit windows, and the ugliest monstrosity he had ever seen was right in front of him.

Here came River's fight. But even if it took blood, he hoped they had somethin' that would do him -- that would do Serenity.

 

River didn't appear again until after the S.S. Walden's captain had left -- along with Billy, Jesse, and his other lackeys -- and Mal had hit the floor. He'd meant to stay standing, but pain clawed at his insides and made him weak. The gun had slipped out of his fingers and lay inches from him on the floor.

Mal could almost tell where the dirty bullet had ripped tissue, grazed his rib, and opened up a tremendous gateway for blood; he hadn't felt particularly healthy lately, but the fluid pouring out of him was a deep and vibrant crimson. It thickened in his fingers and dropped heavily through the grate.

"Up," he heard her voice say, and her hands reached around him gently, holding his shoulders. "There's no carpet here. You'll catch cold."

 _What the --_ "Get the part," he ordered fuzzily. _Fix Serenity. Get us movin'._ "Show you where it goes. Compressor ... whatchathing." Already, though, he could tell River was shaking her head.

"Sorry, Captain," she said. "You have to lie down in the infirmary first. Simon would insist."

"Serenity --"

"Serenity won't move without you," she told him, and tugged again on his shoulders, as if that decided it.

Mal pulled himself up and staggered toward the infirmary, River supporting him. He marveled that she could. After leaning on Zoe so many times in the war -- or carrying her himself -- it was strange to hang on to a much slighter frame. River, though, felt surprisingly firm and stable. She didn't say anything as they walked -- words would have been useless -- but Mal felt more comfortable in her presence than even listening to Kaylee's hopeful chatter or Zoe's steady encouragements. Something stabbed at Mal's gut again; he tried hard to concentrate on the figure beside him, easing him onto the infirmary bed, but pain obscured all thought.

Looking down at her captain for a moment, River laid a warm hand on his forehead, almost to make sure he was really asleep. She pressed a kiss to his grizzled cheek, lingering not a moment longer before stepping away to grab the catalyzer. Breathing hard wouldn't do.

 

Once the engine was spinning again and the automated Chinese warnings had died away, she came back to him. He was awake now -- the ache of his bullet wound wouldn't let him sleep for long. Mal felt as though a dozen hard objects had been shoved inside of him.

"Shhh," River said. "The stomach is the optimum hit point for serious warfare. Legs cannot be afforded. Arms are needed for weapons. In the stomach you will bleed and hurt but you will not die. Pain is a weakness. A small inconvenience. Death is intolerable."

Mal just stared at her.

" _Zao gao,_ " he whispered, then coughed, feeling coppery-tasting blood rise in his throat. "Who told you that?"

River's eyes lost their steely gaze, and turned warm again; she took his hand and smiled sadly down at him.

"Not like Simon," she apologized. "Can't fix you."

Something inside Mal cried out to her -- this sweet, capable, brilliant girl who seemed darker than the black she flew in. He curled his fingers around hers, accepting the touch.

"That's all right," he reassured her in a husk. "Doc'll be comin' along."

"Pressed the button," she agreed, nodding. "Wash will come back first. You'll be fine. Just scar tissue."

It was a relief to have to trust someone this much when she told you exactly what you wanted to hear. What made Mal uneasy was the loneliness of River's eyes, the tightness of her lips.

"Why the troubled face, darlin', if I'm gonna be fine?" he choked out, attempting cheekiness. He wondered if his crew was still alive. His dream came back to him: Zoe falling away, Kaylee's eyes turning glassy, River holding Serenity as everything died --

"Afraid I didn't do enough," she said, looking away from him. "Could have helped. Mal, would you have killed them?"

"Depends," he answered truthfully. "If I had to." _Anything to keep it away, even for an hour. Anything._

She met his eyes. "For Serenity."

"For Serenity," he agreed, and gazed back, his head resting on the table and feeling more than ever like it was weighed down by an iron brick. Their fingers tightened instinctively as they both turned their eyes to the ventilation ducts and diffusers in the ceiling.

"Startin' to get balmy," Mal announced, grinning a little, wanting to make her smile again. She worried even more than he did, and he'd never known it -- never caught her eyes. She had always hung back and kept it to herself. Just like him.

She smiled now, though, enjoying the oxygen. "Yes."

"Need you to take somethin' 'fore the others get here," he told her firmly. Mal took his hand from River's and with no small amount of trouble reached into his pocket, yanking out a small gold chain with a cross on it. Probably more than his life's worth, he conjured, for whatever reason.

Looking uncertain, she reached for it. Mal nodded, and together they stared at it as she twirled the cross necklace in her fingers.

"Did a better job of lookin' after me than He did," Mal muttered, and leaned back, closing his eyes. River dangled Mal's cross for another moment, and played it over her lips before clasping it around her neck. Most of the chain slipped under her dress, hidden.

For the next three hours they just watched each other.

 

"River?" came Simon's familiar concerned yell through the door of Shuttle Two.

"Right here, Simon," she replied, stepping out and into view.

"River --" He was at her side in two long steps and gathered her close. River leaned into her brother's shirt, smelling the flowery, expensive musk that was always on him, even in the blackness of space, ever since Osiris.

"River, what were you _thinking_ \--"

Simon pulled back to look at his sister, still holding her shoulders -- not roughly, but urgently, strongly.

What were you thinking. _He always wants to know. The ease of irrationality is never underestimated._

Simon's eyes were wilder than she'd ever seen them. "The ship was running out of oxygen, River. Why did you stay? _Why did you stay?_ "

"Had to watch Zoe," River told him. "She wasn't stable."

"I took my eyes off you for a second and you ran away from me!"

"Didn't run away. Had to help Mal."

" _Mal_ \-- River, _mei-mei,_ you can't trust people like we used to. We don't know Mal. We can't --"

"Had to help the ship --"

"THEY TOOK YOU AWAY!" her brother screamed, and pulled her to him. "Any time you leave my sight they could do it again. You're not going back to that place. Not ever. I need you to help me. I need you."

River held him until he was sure she was there, and then she smiled into his shoulder. The difficult part, for her, was over.

"You'd never lose me, Simon," River murmured. "I promise." She leaned back in his arms.

He gazed at her, uncomprehending.

"I knew you'd come back. We had to keep each other safe. We couldn't lose Serenity."

Simon just stared at her, the girl smiling back at him whose thoughts he couldn't fathom, who acted like everything was sunlight when his world was gone. She had looked up to him, worshipped him; he had guided her, taught her everything she knew, had his hand on her shoulder when she looked through the Cortex, stood right beside her in the kitchen when she decided tile was the only place for her new ballet.

Since the Academy, there had never been a time when he felt he knew all of her.

River reached up, touched his cheek.

"Don't be upset, Simon," she told him. "I know."

Her brother stared at her, his eyes glazed over with hot tears, and River kissed his cheek.

"Mal needs medical attention," she told him. Not the Captain. _Mal._

"I told him you'd fix him, Simon. You're the best," River continued, and Simon looked back into her eyes and he saw his sister, and she was the same spoiled, brilliant, annoying, perfect, beautiful brat she'd always been.

 

Simon hovered over Mal for a week before the captain was awake enough to tell them all that it had hardly been a graze, and he didn't feel any the worse for it. River stood at the door sometimes, after bringing Simon steaming cups of energy tea, and Mal winked at her whenever he spoke. Remembering his sister's words, Simon said nothing; all he did was watch, and slowly understand.

When Mal was able to talk his way out of the infirmary, the only place the doctor would let him go was his bunk, to sleep for days. Mal didn't put up too much of a fight, but they all let him pretend.

"Don't think I want Jayne in charge," he muttered when Simon mentioned his confinement.

"You may notice," said the doctor with a bit of a smirk, "that I released Zoe two days ago."

"Yeah, but she's still -- Wash is right tetchy about her condition --"

"It's the infirmary or your bunk," Simon told him, crossing his arms. Next to him, River nodded like she was giving him permission, and Mal glanced at her once and finally gave in.

Simon whispered something in his sister's ear and kissed her cheek, but after that busied himself tidying up the infirmary; it was River, then, who half-carried Mal up the short flight of stairs and down the long hallway to his bunk. Mal held her shoulder, but his eyes flashed a warning: he was only indulging the crazy girl, and nothing more. Not even Zoe dared to offer the man more help.

At the top of the ladder to his bunk, River skittered away, and he was left alone to ease himself down.

He closed the door -- nice to not have the faces of a worried crew all over his line of sight, for once -- and limped over to his bed, taking three steps for one.

On his pillow lay a small gold cross. "Serenity," read the Chinese character written on the note under it.

Mal just smiled.


End file.
